The Journey Begins
Oct. 3rd, 2025 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solo_knightActually, that’s a lie. I’ve been flirting with the thought of Solo RPGs for a good while, I’ve been rolling dice to try out a few things for DnD, I’ve dabbled in playing, and I’ve collected a veritable hoard of articles and videos and random tables and games and conversion guides… I just haven’t made enough space in my life to actually play.
So here’s the deal. I want to play two games a month for the next year. A year is a good time to explore a new hobby. I’ve already done some of the work, but there is more to come, and I need to do the practical work, not just the resource-gathering and thinking.
This journal will be the place where I chronicle everything:
– First Impressions
(I’ll introduce a game briefly, so I have an idea what I’ve got. I already have a long list on my hard drive, but I want to shine spotlights on games.)
– In-depth Review
(To do this, I obviously need to play. This, I think, will be reserved for games I play more than once or games I've played a longer campaign with.)
– Playthrough/Review
(What it sez on the tin. A lot of Indie games will be one-and-done: I play them once for an hour or two, but they're so narrow in focus that I have no intention of playing them again.)
– Unreview
(Newly added for things where you need to bring everything to the table. I'm done treating them as games, and there seems to be a surprising amount of these. Sometimes they have small gamified elements, but if you could have almost the same experience twice simply by making up the same story, it's not a game. A game is when you have a random element that influences the story you tell.)
– Game Mechanics
(These aren’t unique to solo games, but they may play out differently in solo gaming)
– Game Loop
But how do you ACTUALLY play?
(Different people have different answers to this. I want to collect them in one place and discuss what does and doesn’t work for me.
The goal of this project is to have fun. If I’m not having fun with a resource, I’ll stop using it, if I’m not having fun with this journal, I will let it fade away quietly.
So here’s the deal. I want to play two games a month for the next year. A year is a good time to explore a new hobby. I’ve already done some of the work, but there is more to come, and I need to do the practical work, not just the resource-gathering and thinking.
This journal will be the place where I chronicle everything:
– First Impressions
(I’ll introduce a game briefly, so I have an idea what I’ve got. I already have a long list on my hard drive, but I want to shine spotlights on games.)
– In-depth Review
(To do this, I obviously need to play. This, I think, will be reserved for games I play more than once or games I've played a longer campaign with.)
– Playthrough/Review
(What it sez on the tin. A lot of Indie games will be one-and-done: I play them once for an hour or two, but they're so narrow in focus that I have no intention of playing them again.)
– Unreview
(Newly added for things where you need to bring everything to the table. I'm done treating them as games, and there seems to be a surprising amount of these. Sometimes they have small gamified elements, but if you could have almost the same experience twice simply by making up the same story, it's not a game. A game is when you have a random element that influences the story you tell.)
– Game Mechanics
(These aren’t unique to solo games, but they may play out differently in solo gaming)
– Game Loop
But how do you ACTUALLY play?
(Different people have different answers to this. I want to collect them in one place and discuss what does and doesn’t work for me.
The goal of this project is to have fun. If I’m not having fun with a resource, I’ll stop using it, if I’m not having fun with this journal, I will let it fade away quietly.
